The trial of former coal company CEO Don Blankenship—the man largely responsible for the Upper Big Branch disaster—is scheduled to begin on April 20. I’m ready to let the Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. provide the best play-by-play.

“When the world came to an end” is how Joshua Williams described being inside the Upper Big Branch coal mine at 3:02 pm on April 5, 2010. He knew several crews of coal miners were much deeper inside the dark tunnels than he. An ominous feeling. Coal dust explosions are powerful and deadly. Eight days…